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Communications

Tools of communication have transformed American society time and again over the past two centuries. The Museum has preserved many instruments of these changes, from printing presses to personal digital assistants.

The collections include hundreds of artifacts from the printing trade and related fields, including papermaking equipment, wood and metal type collections, bookbinding tools, and typesetting machines. Benjamin Franklin is said to have used one of the printing presses in the collection in 1726.

More than 7,000 objects chart the evolution of electronic communications, including the original telegraph of Samuel Morse and Alexander Graham Bell's early telephones. Radios, televisions, tape recorders, and the tools of the computer age are part of the collections, along with wireless phones and a satellite tracking system.

Waves of non–English–speaking European immigrants flooded the cities of industrial America in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Local governments and civic groups sought to encourage immigrants to learn to speak, read, and write English. This 1917 poster from the Americanization Committee of the Cleveland Board of Education was posted in schools in an attempt to reach immigrant parents through their children.

An appeal to attend free evening English classes appears on this poster in six languages : Italian, Hungarian, Slovenian, Polish, Yiddish, and English. Cleveland's factories, steel mills, port facilities, and assembly plants teemed with the new working–class arrivals from central and eastern Europe. On the eve of the American entry into World War I, nationalistic passions were rising and new immigrants were especially encouraged to "become American" by learning English and preparing for American citizenship.

The 29" x 43" poster is a J. H. Donahey publication printed by the Artcraft Company of Cleveland, Ohio.

This US Navy telegraph key was designed and built by the Navy for wireless communication from ships. Until recently, “wireless” meant radio and operators used keys to send radio messages via Morse code.

Telegraph keys are electrical on-off switches used to send messages in Morse code and can spark when the circuit opens. Flame-proof telegraph keys, like this one made by L. S. Brach Company, were designed to contain the spark within a sealed chamber. These keys were necessary on early aircraft and in confined spaces such as aboard ships and submarines where the spark might ignite flammable gasses.

Telegraph keys are electrical on-off switches used to send messages in Morse code and can spark when the circuit opens. Flame-proof telegraph keys, like this one made by International Radio Telegraph Company, were designed to contain the spark within a sealed chamber. These keys were necessary on early aircraft and in confined spaces such as aboard ships and submarines where the spark might ignite flammable gasses.

Telegraph keys are electrical on-off switches used to send messages in Morse code. This Silenced Instrument Key was made for US Army by L. S. Brach Company in 1918 and is designed to make no noise when the operator is sending. The front contact features a needle on the bottom of the lever that dips into a mercury cup to quietly complete the circuit. The rear contact has a rubber boot to silence the return action. A small light bulb assembly permits the operator to visually monitor the signal.

Telegraph keys are electrical on-off switches used to send messages in Morse code and can spark when the circuit opens. Flame-proof telegraph keys, like this one made by Connecticut Telephone & Electric, were designed to contain the spark within a sealed chamber. These keys were necessary on early aircraft and in confined spaces such as aboard ships and submarines where the spark might ignite flammable gasses.

Telegraph keys are electrical on-off switches used to send messages in Morse code. Until recently, “wireless” meant radio and this auxiliary hand sending key was made for US Navy by Wireless Specialty Apparatus Company in 1918. The key could handle power ratings of 2000 watts, alternating current.

This postcard view of the painting "Old Padres spreading the Gospel to the Indians, Old Mission Plaza Church, Los Angeles" was printed by George Rice & Sons (1879-1993) in Los Angeles, Calif. in 1913 using photomechanical processes.

Mission Nuestra Señora Reina de Los Ángeles Asistencia was founded in 1784 as an ancillary mission to Mission San Gabriel Arcángel, the fourth of twenty-one Spanish Franciscan missions established in California between 1769 and 1823. Mission Nuestra Señora was built to convert American Indians of the Tongva tribe to Catholicism.

This switch lever was part of RMS Carpathia's wireless radio apparatus; most likely it was a manual breaker for the antenna connection to the radio. It would have been opened in storms to prevent lightning from striking the radio itself. It was damaged during the rescue of Titanic's passengers, and the next time the ship was in Boston, Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company employee Harry Cheetham went aboard Carpathia to service the wireless. At the time, shipboard radios belonged to the radio company, not the shipping lines.

The Anglo-American Telegraph Company was organized in 1865 as a joint British-American venture to lay an Atlantic telegraph cable. After three failed attempts by other telegraph companies, Anglo-American Telegraph Company successfully laid and operated the first trans-Atlantic cable in 1866. The company operated cables until 1912, when they were leased to Western Union

Summary

Records relating to the organization of the company, corporate and financial records. Corporate records include two volumes of the company's acts, charters, contracts and agreements, 1862-1883; minutes of board meetings relating to varied subjects, such as agreements between the company and other telegraph companies such as Western Union Telegraph concerning sales of property, details of trnsactions or purchases undertaken by the company. Financial records consist of nine volumes of "journals" showing monthly records of receipts, 1866-1912; nineteen volumes of ledgers reveal a detailed financial status of the company, 1866-1912; and nine volumes of cash books consist of the financial transactions of the company, 1904-early 1941. See also 1 folder of the Anglo-American Telegraph Company telegrams in the Warshaw Collection under the heading "Telegraphs"